A strict action against undeclared work and tax evasion is the Federal Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz (SPD) is very important. As the coalition government in 2019 adopted a law to strengthen the customs-based financial control of illegal employment (FKS), he said: “The men and women who work at customs, you need to be well equipped and in a great number of them to be able to fulfil these tasks.” This is also a question of justice.
Dietrich Creutzburg
economic correspondent in Berlin.
F. A. Z.
A new report by the Federal court of audit does, however, pose a different light on the work of the control authorities and on the role of Scholz’s Ministry plays. Specifically, the court has examined the customs and financial authorities to work together.
His conclusion: The data exchange method “under legal and technical aspects of serious shortcomings”. “Both the customs and the tax authorities insist on their sovereignty and work together in confidence”, to criticize the auditor in its report to the budget Committee of the Bundestag. The Ministry will hold several Play, to do little against the defects. The report of the F. A. Z. is.
with a more modern database feasible
Thus, the tariff leads to a file with the names of 5000 bogus companies that are interested in company, business, issue a standard bill invoices for work done. They have paid the amount, be returned to him, minus a Commission in cash – to pay in order then to black workers.
The financial offices, however, the court of auditors criticises the customs don’t allow access to the file: “Although the customs authorities are obliged to provide the tax authorities of evidence of tax evasion to inform (…), refuse the publication of the list of ticket companies.”
The Federal Ministry of Finance and placed under the customs after presentation of the auditor privacy concerns in the field. Only after the establishment of a modern database with appropriate interfaces for state agencies, the exchange would be feasible. The controller to counter this but with the announcement that the fight against tax evasion could not wait: The Ministry of Finance must comply with “its statutory mandate and to provide to the tax authorities of the entire list immediately available”.
